Vermont Cookie Love, a franchise known for its delicious baked cookies, cookie dough and creemees, is set to open a new location at 40 Main Street in Middlebury in the fall, where the bakery Chim Chimney formerly had a home.
The business began at the Shelburne Farmers Market, where it opened up 15 years ago and built a following selling fresh-baked cookies and cookie dough. In 2009, the company opened its “Love Shack” headquarters at 6915 Route 7 in North Ferrisburgh, Vt., which has since become a local favorite. Now, the menu features a dozen types of cookies in addition to seasonal specialties.
Matt Bonoma, the current owner, purchased Vermont Cookie Love in 2021 after 10 years of consulting and investing in startup food and beverage companies, including Cookie Love itself. After moving to Vermont with his wife, he was looking for a company to buy and felt drawn to Cookie Love. While his background is in the financials and operations of businesses, the process of baking and formulation has always interested him. Now, he is a leader on the team in recipe development.
Bonoma plans to hire his staff from the Middlebury area, including Middlebury students.
“We are really excited to be working with the students and the college, and I would love to be in a position where our staff is made up of a great cast of Middlebury students,” Bonoma said in an interview with The Campus. “Presuming there is interest, it’s a nice job where if someone wanted to work 4–5 hours a week after classes, we could accommodate that.”
The chocolate chip cookie is the bakery’s best seller, accounting for half of the cookies they sell.
“We have a special way of baking the cookies that gives you a crispy, well-done exterior and a really soft interior. Whether you’re a hard cookie or soft cookie person, there’s something for you to like,” Bonoma said.
On the ice cream side, they are best known for their cremees, and their maple-coffee twist in particular. Bonoma prides his business for having won best cremee in Seven Daysies — Seven Days’ annual best of Vermont awards — for nine years in a row.
Determining how to operate efficiently in a space that is different from their current location is Cookie Love’s team’s current challenge.
“Figuring out where to put machines, ice cream freezers, and ovens so that it works well for both the team and customers is the other thing [we’ve] spent a lot of time on,” Bonoma said. “I will be the first one to admit we’ve never done this before, so there’s a lot of learning as we go and every day you think of a new problem that needs to be solved.”
Locally sourced ingredients are a pillar of Vermont Cookie Love.
“The closer to home we’re sourcing the ingredients, the more we are supporting our community, the higher quality ingredients we are getting, and the more the people supplying the ingredients have a reason to care about what we’re doing — because they often feel the same way about supporting small local businesses,” Bonoma said.
Vermont Cookie Love works with Wilcox, Kingdom Creamery, Cabot, Monument Farms and several other local businesses.
“There’s a big advantage to making sure that all those dollars are staying here locally,” Bonoma said. “We are working with the leadership team at these companies, they are much more responsive to our needs and wants than a big faceless company from out of state can be.”
The current Vermont Cookie Love team consists of five full-time employees and about 12 part-time seasonal workers who are high school and college-aged students.
“I think it speaks highly of the business that a lot of our staff started during their high school years and are still coming back and working with us every summer, so we feel proud of that fact,” Bonoma said.
Vermont Cookie Love is focusing on the short-term right now and ensuring a smooth opening of the Middlebury location.
“We want to keep doing what we’re doing well here in North Ferrisburgh, make Middlebury a big success, and then we’d love to look for more opportunities down the line,” Bonoma said.
